


Stranger Number 127

by maradaeng



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Fluff and Angst, I'm Bad At Tagging, Lee Donghyuck | Haechan is Whipped, M/M, Mark Lee (NCT) is Bad at Feelings, Not Really Character Death, Sad Ending, it's up to your imagination, kinda strangers to lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:27:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28316016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maradaeng/pseuds/maradaeng
Summary: In a world in which everytime a person falls in love a red tally mark appears on their wrist, Lee Minhyung meets Donghyuck, who comes in the form of a storm — razing and blowing away every single thing that gets on his hasty and ghastly way.Minhyung learns, by hook or by crook, he shall never let him go.
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2
Collections: NCTV Secret Santa 2020





	Stranger Number 127

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dearlypetit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dearlypetit/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fic for the NCTV Secret Santa! Hope you guys enjoy it as much as I enjoy writing it <3
> 
> To my SS: 
> 
> Hi! Your prompts were really interesting, it was hard to choose one, but I finally opted for the angsty one since it's what I'm best at lmao. College was keeping me more busy than I thought it would so I decided to do the fic chaptered :( Each chapter will have the count of 1.5/2k words more or less!
> 
> I hope I won't let you down with this and that you feel satisfied with the results :)

Monday, July 31

If you ask Minhyung about how his life is going, he would simply not be able to give a proper answer to that question. In his defense, he is just a 23 years old man that has just graduated from university a few months ago and, as contradictory as it might sound and actually is, he is not certain of what his goals are or if he does even have any goals at all or what his next steps should be.

However, Minhyung always tends to drink that question off, because why do people care, anyway?

The taste of almost warm beer feels disgusting inside his mouth, and the truth is: he has never liked beer. For whatever stupid reason, be it social pressure or the hopelessness of being drunk as soon as he is able to, he finds himself finishing his second glass. Two more to go and everything will be, at least, a little more bearable.

"Listen, I think this is _the_ one." Jaemin says just the same way he had done the last five times this has happened, with his sparkly eyes and lower lip trapped between his prominent teeth. Minhyung just asks their usual waiter at Sun & Moon for another beer.

Don't get him wrong, Jaemin is his best friend, but just like he is sweet and caring and funny, he has this tendency to forget that the world doesn't revolve around him and just him.

"What was his name again? Jeno?" Minhyung tries in order to make it seem he has been paying attention for the last half an hour, and he feels genuinely bad about the fact that today he just can't focus and that Jaemin just likes to bring this topic at any chance he has.

People say Leo + Leo is a good combination. Minhyung thinks that doesn't work as accurately with himself.

"Yes, and I swear, Lee Minhyung, _I swear_ he is the sweetest, bestest boy you could ever meet." Minhyung wants to refute that's what he always says about every single guy he thinks he's _the one,_ but Minhyung loves Jaemin, Jaemin is happy and he is not drunk enough to let out inappropriate comments just yet. Jaemin, how could he not to, notices the slightly visible discomfort in Minhyung, and as the meddling leo sun he is, he has to ask. "What's wrong? Fuck, I'm doing it again, don't I?"

"Huh?"

"Talking about me. And the strings. I'm doing it again. Look, I'm sorry, I'm just— I don't know, I just have this... feeling about Jeno and... I got carried away." Minhyung is grateful that at least Jaemin has some self-awareness left. He is also kind of grateful that he hasn't ruined the mood by saying his stupid and selfish thoughts out loud.

"No, no, what are you even apologizing for? You know I'm more than glad to hear you talk about it. I'm fine, Jaem, seriously. Keep going."

"But are you?" Minhyung blinks. Because… is he? To be honest, not even himself truly knows. Nor he wants to, either way. "Hyung, we've talked a lot about this and I really don't want to be annoying or pressure you but I can't help it. Shouldn't you—?"

Jaemin's words are interrupted by a familiar uncle-like voice followed by an obnoxious laugh and some more strident noises both Minhyung and Jaemin can perfectly recognize. The rest of his friends finally arrive, and Minhyung finds it rather pertinent given the awkward and uncomfortable moment he was about to face some seconds ago. Because as much as he loves and cherishes Jaemin, he doesn't want to talk about it, and because he doesn't want to talk about it, he manages to slip away after a while, when everyone has settled down with their shot glasses ready to be filled and are busy laughing at whatever uncle joke of Youngho. 

Outside Sun & Moon, Jeju island faces a rather cold night for July 31, and Minhyung shrinks under the tender moonlight that shyly peeps out of a cloud in order to find some kind of warmth inside his clothing. He usually never smokes, but at nights like these, when there's not really much to smile about even though he is surrounded by people that love him, he lights his cigarette. 

The smoke blends with the wind, and the wind, Minhyung has learned, does not bring anything good. 

Along their ten years of friendship, Minhyung has also learned a lot about Jaemin — about how different they are not only when it comes to their personalities but points of view as well. Even if Minhyung comes off as a very cheerful and easy going person, a social butterfly or 'the popular one', he has a lot of thoughts. Too many and too bad ones. He is rather a negative sort of person but, as he always says, that's just a defense mechanism. Why expect something good and get let down when you can expect the worst and get a positive surprise at the end? 

Jaemin is totally the opposite. And it amazes Minhyung that out of all the things he has learned throughout these ten years, he hasn't gotten influenced by anything good. 

At nights like these, where the only company that comforts him is his own thoughts and soul and heart, Minhyung rests his back against the closest wall, and it feels so cold that it sends shivers all down his spine. Either way, when his mind is already doing what it's best at, Minhyung cannot care less about the coldness of that July night, or the smoke invading his young lungs, or that Jeno guy or those dumb strings of love. At nights like these, Minhyung swims and sails the deepest oceans of his inner world. A world he is yet to know at its fullest, a world that, even when it's his and just his, can't provide him all the answers he seeks day and night and the hours in between.

"Aren't you cold dressed like that?"

Minhyung shrugs, not bothering to look at whoever asked him that. Why does people care so much, he thinks. It's annoying. It's annoying when people care more about him than he himself. It's quite annoying, Minhyung considers, when people care more than they should.

'Mind your own business.' But he doesn't say it. Like he always does, he keeps it to himself. And, again, asks himself why must he be so bitter. And, once again, he guesses he just can't help it.

It's not until he misses the cigarette stick on his lips that he shows some sort of reaction, which consists in a barely noticeable frown and actually looking at that nosy someone. That _beautiful_ yet kind of annoying someone who is looking directly at him — his own cigarette now resting on the edge of his bumpy lips and in between his index and middle finger. And on a summer night, outside an old bar and in front of Jeju's peaceful sea, Minhyung finds that someone somehow mesmerizing.

Not that he will say it out loud, of course. 

"What the hell are you doing?" Minhyung asks. The annoyance of his voice comes out high pitched and it makes a cocky grin appear on the contrary's face.

"A favor." Mesmerizing stranger says, as if it's the most obvious thing. Minhyung rolls his eyes and saves his answer. Basically because he is not entirely wrong. 

"I would have shared it if you asked me, jeez."

"Problem is I don't want to share it."

"Whatever, this doesn't make any sense."

He proceeds to leave. The beach is just a few steps behind that beautiful stranger. Beach means sea, sea means ocean, ocean is some sort of healing freedom to Minhyung, and healing and freedom and everything that has to do with the seek of comfort and easiness is all Minhyung needs right now. So he walks. One step, two steps, three steps. He looks back at the sound of small steps behind his own.

"Are you following me?"

Stranger shrugs, cigarette still in hand and stealthy smile that brightens when he faces the moon. A sigh on Minhyung's part and then he starts walking again.

At some point Minhyung reaches his destiny, and despite the sand being cold, Minhyung remains indifferent and takes seat, makes himself comfortable like he's at home. And just stares into the dark, immense ocean. Next to him, whose name he still doesn't know, sits as well. It's silent, just the two of them sitting right next to each other, staring at the ocean as the only perceptible sounds are the inhaling of the other boy at the almost faded cigarette and the calming cradle of the sea. 

Minhyung has never been good at dealing with people he is not familiar with, even less when it comes to rude strangers that act as if they've known you since forever. And it's kind of amusing, to Minhyung's thinking, that he always manages to easily make friends although he's shy and awkward around people — Minhyung likes to excuse it with the fact of him being a Leo.

But being a Leo won't save him from actually having to deal with the random guy next to him, and sometimes he can't help it but hate the stars, the universe or whoever puts him in these nonsense situations in which he tends to end up. 

"Here with your friends?" The stranger's voice, Minhyung perceives, has been soft, almost caring, this whole time, but even though it sounds tender and calm, it startles him after a very long moment of just silence and staring at the horizon. 

There aren't many stars at sight this night, Minhyung notices, and it's such a pity, he complains, that Jeju's night sky is so empty of life when he most needs to be accompanied. "Yeah, they're inside."

"How come you're not with them?" Minhyung just shrugs. Not because he doesn't know how to answer but because he doesn't find the strength to actually voice out the words. Cold summer nights without a starry sky have this effect on him.

"Lee Donghyuck." Minhyung, after what seems a whole life, looks at Lee Donghyuck, and Lee Donghyuck, who has been looking at him this whole time, peeks directly into his soul.

Lee Donghyuck. The tongue slowly slips through his teeth with the Lee. With Dong, however, feels heavy yet fast, like a pop. Hyuck is just there, drowning like a whisper in his mouth. 

He meets Donghyuck under a dark and cloudy sky, with the stars fallen asleep and the moon making itself comfortable in a mass of condensed watery vapour. He meets Donghyuck when he feels like doing nothing, when he feels as empty as Jeju's sky. Lee Donghyuck meets him and as if it's his duty, he wrecks Minhyung's inner world.

When Donghyuck comes into his life, he comes in the form of a storm, razing and blowing away every single thing that gets on his hasty and ghastly way. Later on, Minhyung learns by hook or by crook, he shall never let him go.

"Lee Minhyung."

  
  
  



End file.
